Steamboy
Director: Katsuhiro Otomo
Year Released: 2004
Rating: 1.5
Otomo tries to one-up his own landmark Akira with an even more intricate and bombastic film, but turns out a mind-numbing explosion-a-thon. The main characters here are plain and uninteresting, at least when compared to the infinitely detailed backgrounds and CGI - it's quite clear more time was spent on designing, say, the smallest little robot submarine (complete with periscope!) than on the people and their motivations (it's your standard good vs. evil tract, with plenty of warnings against using science for evil, etc.). It somehow seems more 'sci-fi' than Akira (giant floating towers powered by steam overwhelming London ... in the 19th century? Wha...?) and, considering the time taken to finish it (close to a decade!?!), a sad waste of time and energy.
